1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to document processing, and to compact, desktop document processors for capturing images from checks and other financial and payment-related documents.
2. Background Art
Historically, banks processed large volumes of paper checks in centralized locations, either a central bank or a clearing house. Document processing machines in such locations were large, processing up to 2000 documents per minute. These machines were supported by dedicated, trained operators.
However, centralized processing costs banks typically three days in clearing a document. The “Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act” or the “Check 21 Act” was enacted by Congress to facilitate check truncation by authorizing substitute checks, to foster innovation in the check collection system without mandating receipt of checks in electronic form, and to improve the overall efficiency of the Nation's payments system. The Check 21 legislation has driven the demand for decentralized check imagers and sorters in financial institutions. Check 21 gives equal legal validity to electronic data obtained from documents, and has made it possible for banks to distribute document processing to speed the clearing process. Check 21 has made it advantageous for banks to convert paper checks to electronic data as early as possible.
In the recent past, banks have partially converted paper check information to electronic data. In some cases this partial information was used internally. In other cases two banks would agree on standards for electronic data transfer. In either case, the paper check was still the only legal document for the transaction. Check 21 has standardized these agreements across the banking industry, and given the electronic data legal merit, if the electronic data meet the requirements set forth in Check 21.
Accordingly, Check 21 has led to a rapid expansion of check-processing solutions based upon interchange of electronic images rather than paper checks, and with this there has been a flood of smaller, cheaper check-processing devices which all have the aim of capturing check images ever-more-early in the payment transaction. This process, known as truncation, aims to remove the physical paper check from the process of payment clearing as quickly as possible—ideally, at the point of presentment (cashier station, merchant counter, etc.). Because it is advantageous for banks to convert paper checks to Check 21 valid electronic data as early as possible, compact, desktop document processors have been developed. Some of these payment system devices are designed for use on a counter top, or at a teller window.
As check-processing machines directed at the check-imaging truncation market become ever-smaller and cheaper, the proportional cost of digital image-capture means relative to the whole cost of the machine becomes ever-greater. Current check-processing machines have two digital image-capture devices, one for capturing the front image and another for capturing the rear image.
Workers in the art will be familiar with the growing range of check-processing machines which are being offered in response to the growth of digital-image-based check-clearing systems. In a process known generically as truncation, these machines seek to move the conversion from paper check to digital image ever-closer to the point of presentment, and so the market is filled with devices which are tailored to point-of-presentment use—at a teller window, at the merchant counter, and at the checkout station. Such devices must be small (to save valuable retail space), and they must be cheap to buy and own (to make their purchase and use attractive and to encourage the spread of truncation as widely as possible). However, compared to the check-processing machines of even the recent past, their processing speed need not be very fast—a transaction rate of 2 or 3 checks per minute may be perfectly-adequate in the truncation environment, where in the past machines have been required to operate as much as 1000 times faster than this.
The primary function of such machines is to capture a digital image of both sides of the check. To achieve this function, such machines conventionally drive the check by a system of, for example, belts and rollers in between two digital imaging devices or cameras, one capturing an image of the front face of the check and the other capturing an image of the rear face of the check as it passes by. Such cameras typically operate as linear scanning devices, the complete image being formed form a series of linear scans performed as the check moves past the camera.
There have been various technological generations of such image cameras, and the most-commonly used current embodiment is the contact image scanner, a linear device which uses rod-lens technology to capture images of passing documents which are held against the face of an integral glass screen.
CIS cameras, while efficient and of moderate cost when compared with previous generations of this technology, still form a significant part of the product cost of the latest generation of check-processing devices. This cost proportion is due, not only to the cost of the devices themselves, but also to the cost of the supporting electronics and associated power supply that each camera requires.
For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for a small, low-cost check-processing machine which has the capacity to capture digital images of both faces of a check.